I would like to give Mario Batali a huge bear hug. Every Thursday, Chef Batali asks local farms and organic vendors to set up shop in the warehouse that stores dry goods for his Vegas restaurants and gives us Vegas desert dwellers a chance to buy some really amazing produce.

I don’t think if you live in the suburban side of the Northeast that you will quite understand what a pleasure and gift this is, but maybe you can just imagine life without grass and full of dirt and rocks! Pleasant.

In my visit this week, I got purple carrots with Bugs-Bunny greens shooting out of them, beautiful cream potatoes, a cherimoya (more on that later), rainbow swiss chard (that was hiding a little snail I discovered when I washed it), huge heirloom tomatoes, and some especially fragrant pea shoots. I brought it all home, plopped it on the counter and just stared at the colors for a good 5 minutes, smiling.

This turkey burger is simple. I wanted to really focus on the tomatoes and pea shoots and let them shine. Hopefully you can find something similar to make your own!

For the Recipe, click here:

Curried Turkey Burgers with Grilled Tomatoes and Honey Mustard

About three years ago, when Ivan and I started dating, we visited a Bulgarian friend of his for dinner and I tasted stuffed peppers like I have never had them before. They were made with a combination of spices that spoke of the many many times he had made them. They obviously remain in my memory, so they were some powerful peppers.

I was browsing through a Bulgarian recipe book that Ivan brought home from his last trip and though I couldn’t understand a word of it, the pictures spoke a thousand words. So, I tried to come up with something that would remind Ivan a little of home and a little of here. The couscous is clearly not Bulgarian, but the flavors speak of good home cooking which is how I think of Bulgarian cuisine.

For the Recipe, click here:

Stuffed Peppers with Fennel Spiced Turkey and Couscous